page_title: Marshall Applewhite
section_title: Mass suicide
hierarchical_section_title: Marshall Applewhite / Mass suicide
caption_attribution_description: English: Comet Hale-Bopp. Author shot this image at Zabriskie Point in Death Valley in April 1997.
context_page_description: Marshall Herff Applewhite Jr., also known as Do, among other names, was an American cult leader who founded what became known as the Heaven's Gate religious group and organized their mass suicide in 1997, claiming the lives of 39 people.
  A native of Texas, Applewhite attended several universities, and as a young man, served in the United States Army. After finishing school at Austin College, he taught music at the University of Alabama. He later returned to Texas, where he led choruses and served as the chair of the music department at the University of St. Thomas in Houston. He left the school in 1970, citing emotional turmoil. His father's death a year later brought on severe depression. In 1972, he developed a close friendship with Bonnie Nettles, a nurse; together, they discussed mysticism at length and concluded that they were called as divine messengers. They operated a bookstore and teaching center for a short while and then began to travel around the U.S. in 1973 to spread their views. They only gained one convert. In 1975, Applewhite was arrested for failing to return a rental car and was jailed for 6 months. In jail, he further developed his theology.
context_section_description: In October 1996, the group rented a mansion in Rancho Santa Fe, California. That year, they recorded two video messages in which they offered their viewers a "last chance to evacuate Earth". Around the same time, they learned of the approach of Comet Hale–Bopp. Applewhite now believed that Nettles was aboard a spaceship trailing the comet, and that she planned to rendezvous with them. He told his followers that the vessel would transport them to an empyrean destination, and that a government conspiracy was attempting to suppress word of the craft. In addition, he stated that his deceased followers would be taken by the vessel, as well, a belief that resembled the Christian pretribulation rapture doctrine. How he learned of the comet or why he believed that it was accompanied by extraterrestrials or why he should have believed the dead Nettles would be with them is not known.
  In late March 1997, the group isolated themselves and recorded farewell statements. Many members praised Applewhite in their final messages; Davis describes their remarks as "regurgitations of Do's gospel". Applewhite recorded a video shortly before his death, in which he termed the suicides the "final exit" of the group and remarked, "We do in all honesty hate this world". Lewis speculates that Applewhite settled on suicide because he had said that the group would ascend during his lifetime, so appointing a successor was unfeasible.
  Religious scholar Catherine Wessinger posits that the suicides began on March 22. Most members took barbiturates and alcohol and then placed bags over their heads. They wore Nike shoes and black uniforms with patches that read "Heaven's Gate Away Team". A bag that contained a few dollars and a form of identification was placed beside most bodies. The deaths occurred over 3 days; Applewhite was one of the last four to die. Three assistants helped him die by suicide, then killed themselves. An anonymous tip led the sheriff's department to search the mansion; they found 39 bodies there on March 26. It was the largest group suicide involving U.S. citizens since the 1978 mass suicide of 920 Americans in Jonestown, Guyana. Applewhite's body was found seated on the bed of the mansion's master bedroom. Medical examiners determined that his fears of cancer had been unfounded, but that he suffered from coronary atherosclerosis.
  The deaths provoked a media circus, and Applewhite's face was featured on the covers of Time and Newsweek on April 7. His final message was widely broadcast; Hugh Urban of Ohio State University describes his appearance in the video as "wild-eyed [and] rather alarming".
caption: Comet Hale–Bopp over California in April 1997
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS Macintosh", "Image DateTime": "2005:02:12 21:45:57", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "302", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "2189", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1200", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1820"}